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Sarah Karol floated in half-sleep immerged in the aroma of searing bacon. Jericho was making breakfast. She needed to wake up and get up. Wyatt, her nine-year-old son, would be up and dressed and talking to Jericho ninety miles an hour.
Dear Lord. What would she do without Jericho Hatch?
Or more to the point, what might she be without him and his wife? Bonnie Hatch had been the mother Sarah had never had. If Jericho and Bonnie hadn’t plucked her out of society’s trash heap, she might not even have Wyatt. She said a prayer of thanksgiving at least once every day. Thank you, Jesus.
Bonnie had died from breast cancer a couple of years back. She still lived in Sarah’s heart and her image still loomed large in her mind. Sarah had loved her with primal fierceness. She had taken care of her through her illness, was at her bedside when her ravaged body drew its last breath. God damn cancer. Sarah cussed it every goddamn day.
She glimpsed at the clock on the table beside her bed. Damn, she was running late. She forced herself awake and groggily sat up. Last night had been another oxycodone night. She had resisted getting up and swallowing the damn stuff though almost every doctor who had taken care of her had urged her to take it.
Something inside her always cautioned her against swallowing narcotics. She had seen drug abuse and its consequences too many times, had grown up an orphan because of it. Some arcane inner compass she had never understood would not let her become a victim herself. A visual of that egg frying in that anti-drug commercial on TV had put an indelible imprint on her brain.
She swept her waist-length hair off her face then reached for the yardstick she kept close to the bed’s headboard. She leaned to the side and swept it back and forth under the bed. The ritual was more than a habit. It was a phobia, like never walking near a cluster of plants, never entering a dark barn or an unfamiliar room without first looking around.
Looked like the coast was clear. She got to her feet and limped down the hall to the bathroom. "Fuckin' snakes," she grumbled.
In the outdated bathroom barely big enough for a commode, an antique clawfoot tub and a chipped porcelain pedestal sink, she stood for a few seconds staring at her reflection in the mirrored medicine cabinet centered above the sink. Light from a single bulb in a small light fixture above the mirror gave her face an amber look. She leaned closer to the mirror and studied the bags under her eyes. These sleepless nights made her look older than her twenty-six years. Hell, her very life made her look older than twenty-six.
She combed her fingers through her thick hair. Since her friend Tiffany put layers in it, it seemed to be messier than ever. She had shampooed and conditioned it yesterday, a task that took a good part of a morning every other day. Today, she gathered it into a pony tail and stretched a scrunchie around it.
“Fuckin’ nuisance,” she muttered, pinning it up for her shower. Why hadn’t she told Tiffany to cut all of it off instead of layering it? No busy half-crippled woman needed hair that consumed as much time as hers did. At the same time she conducted that conversation with herself, she admitted she enjoyed hearing compliments on her silky, almost-black hair. Looks like a black waterfall people would say. She needed all of the daisies she could gather.
"God knows, there's plenty of crap I've got no control of, right Janie?" she mumbled to her reflection.
Janie. Her imaginary friend from childhood. Oh, the hours she and Janie had spent talking about everything in life. At times, Janie had been Sarah’s only trustworthy companion. Many times, the fantastical Janie had saved her from doing something stupid. Sarah no longer needed her, but she still had talks with her.
She rubbed some fancy cream Tiffany had given her on her face, paid special attention to the puffiness under her eyes. After that, she dressed in jeans, boots and a long-sleeve turtleneck because it was winter. This morning, because it was the Christmas season, the turtleneck was red.
In the kitchen, she found Jericho at the old avocado-green cookstove manning a cast-iron skillet. Wyatt sat at the table playing with his phone. "Mornin' y'all."
Jericho looked up. "Mornin', Sarah."
Wyatt's eyes and fingers kept dancing over his phone screen. "Hi, Mom."
She had reluctantly bought him a phone because he rode the bus to school and back every day. The phone was supposed to be used for emergencies only. It was a good idea, but it was also as dumb as it was good.
She walked over to him and ruffed his unruly hair. His hair was thick and dark like hers. Giggling, he turned his head away from her hand. "Don't, Mom."
With a growl, she wrapped both arms around him in a tight hug and blew a raspberry against his neck.
Laughing harder, he twisted and tried to escape her. "Mo-om! You're squeezing me!"
She freed him, straightened and limped to the Mr. Coffee, her boot heels thudding against the old linoleum floor. "What time did you get up, Son?"
"Me and Grandpa got up at the same time."
Jericho wasn’t Wyatt’s grandfather, but he never complained about Wyatt calling him “Grandpa.” He had even said he was happy about it since he had no blood-related grandchildren. Sarah had never seen or met Wyatt’s real grandpa, didn’t even know his name. Jericho was as close to being a grandparent as Wyatt would ever see.
She poured herself a mug of steaming coffee and doctored it the way she liked it. Well, not exactly. What she liked was a latte, but the nearest place to get a latte was seventy miles away in Abilene. Paying what a latte cost, especially when it didn’t last all that long, was stupid anyway. She made do with plain old strong coffee heavy on half-and-half.
"You so busy playing with that phone you didn't have time to run a brush through your hair?" she asked her son.
Jericho lifted slices of crisp bacon from the skillet. "You're moving a little slow this mornin’ Sarah. Bad night?" He usually diverted her from scolding Wyatt.
"Not too bad."
"You sick, Mom?"
"Not a bit."
"Wyatt and I are gonna have eggs with our bacon," Jericho said. "Want one?"
"Sure."
Soon all three of them were at the table, hurrying through a breakfast of fried bacon, fried eggs basted with bacon grease and Jericho' homemade chuckwagon biscuits, probably made with lard. Nobody made a better cholesterol-laden breakfast than Jericho.
"Lou called," he said. "She tried to get hold of Tiffany to see if she's still gonna go to that horse clinic. She didn't get no answer, so she was worried."
Tiffany Fisher had been one of the first friends her own age that Sarah had made after the Hatches had enrolled her in Roundup High School. Sarah was sixteen. Tiffany had followed her around like a puppy, told her she admired her because she wasn’t embarrassed to go to Roundup High School with a big pregnant belly.
What a well-loved girl like Tiffany would never understand was that after the life Sarah had lived on the Fort Worth streets, pre-Hatches and pre-Roundup, Texas, moving around pregnant among a bunch of small-town high school kids in a small country school had felt like a walk in a park. It sure as hell beat fighting off some drugged-up asshole or getting rousted by the cops and having some social worker take over her life.
Tiffany had been in a depression since her boyfriend dumped her and left town a few months back. A doctor up in Abilene had given her pills to make her feel better. The girl had a medicine cabinet full of assorted prescription pills. She ran to the doctor if she woke up with a zit on her face. She usually came home from those doctor visits with pain-killers or tranquilizers or anti-anxiety pills or some other potion designed to dull her senses.
Sarah figured she had seen most of humanity’s bad behavior. She certainly had seen depression, but she had never related. Despite all the shit she had waded through, for some reason, she had never been depressed to the point where she wanted a pill or a drink or a shot of something. Survival had always been her goal. She frequently gave Tiffany friendly lectures on the hazards of too many pills, even if some unconscious doctor had given her a prescription.
Tiffany’s parents were divorced. Her mother lived in Abilene. She kept Tiffany amply supplied with the latest fashions and cosmetics if not much else. Tiffany lived with her dad, the only accountant in Roundup. With more income than most of the people in town, he had paid for his only daughter to attend the horse clinic at Louise Beckman’s place at the suggestion from an Abilene doctor. Therapy, the doc said.
Though Sarah had been ordered not to ride a horse at the moment and she couldn’t afford the fee for the clinic anyway, she had recruited herself to nag Tiffany and make sure she went.
Getting along with an unpredictable horse as therapy probably wasn't a solid gold remedy, especially the pissy horse Tiffany's boyfriend left behind. Rudy—Rudy the Rude, Sarah called him—was green-broke and uncut and a handful. Because he belonged to Burke Allen—Burke the Jerk, Sarah had tagged him—Tiffany refused to part with him.
Working as a part time receptionist at Roundup’s small emergency care facility didn’t pay Tiffany enough to afford a vet to fix Rudy or some smart horse trainer to teach him some manners. Her dad picked up the bills for a lot of her frivolous spending, but he had drawn the line at paying to have Burke's horse castrated. He badgered her to sell him and keep the money.
"Burke might come back and want him," Tiffany would tell her dad, but that was pure fantasy. Burke didn't want that unruly horse any more than he wanted Tiffany and he wasn't coming back for any reason any time soon. By now, he probably had found another girlfriend to go along with the greener pastures he thought he would find away from Roundup.
Hearing that Tiffany failed to answer Louise Beckman’s call so early in the morning caused concern. The contents of her medicine cabinet, the fact that her state of mind was worse than anyone believed and knowing Tiffany wasn’t strong had crossed Sarah's mind more than once. "Wonder why she didn't answer. I think I'd better call her."
“Eat your breakfast,” Jericho groused.
“I’m gonna call her, Jericho.”
Jericho maintained a rule about talking on the phone or texting in the middle of a meal, so out of respect for him, Sarah picked up her phone and walked into the kitchen. Tiffany soon came on the line. "Hey, Tiff. Still going this morning?"
"Yeah, I'm going. I just got up."
"Louise tried to call you. Said you didn't answer."
"I was in the bathroom, okay? I'm not like some people. I don't take my phone into the bathroom. If I dropped it in the toilet, I’d have to drive all the way to Abilene to get another one."
Whoa. Snappish this morning. "Okay, okay. Louise was a little concerned is all."
"Well she doesn't need to be. I was going to call her back if somebody will just give me time."
"Don't be mad at her. She cares about you, Tiffany. We all do."
Sniffles came across the line. "I know. I didn't mean to bite your head off."
Tiffany needed to pull herself together. It wasn't even eight o'clock and she was in tears. Sarah held back a sigh. "Listen, Jericho and I'll pick you up soon as we get Wyatt on the school bus, okay?"
Since Tiffany owned no trailer in which to haul Rudy the Rude, Jericho and Sarah intended to haul him in Jericho's rusty, beat-up two-horse trailer, along with Sarah's mare, Popsie.
"I don't think I can make Rudy go into a trailer," Tiffany said, still sniffling. "Half the time, Burke couldn’t do it, either.”
"Don’t cry, okay. Jericho and I’ll be able to load him for you."
Sarah had no idea if that was true. She had a stiff leg and wasn’t as agile as she had been once. In his seventies, Jericho wasn't either and he huffed and puffed when he walked even a short distance. Still, Sarah was determined to not let Tiffany start the day with Burke the Jerk on her mind.
"I thought Wyatt was already out of school," Tiffany was saying.
"Nope. Friday at noon. He won't have to go back until after New Year's. I'm making a bunch of cupcakes for his Christmas party. I thought my good friend who can cook might help me."
"Ugh. Seriously?"
Sarah considered herself a decent cook. Hell, she had been cooking since she was Wyatt's age. When she was ten, she had been placed with a foster family who wanted a cook and house cleaner more than they wanted an extra kid. Sarah didn't need anyone's help to make cupcakes, but Tiffany needed something to do other than sitting around moping over Burke.
"Hey, c'mon. You can do it. They had cake mixes on sale at the grocery store and I bought two different kinds. Chocolate and Red Velvet. And I bought some cream cheese and powdered sugar. Cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. That oughtta keep those kids on a sugar high for a whole week. I got some of those colored sprinkle things to put on top of the frosting, too. Red and green. Hello, Christmas."
"I guess I can manage a mix. Listen, I gotta go. I'll be ready when you get here."
As Sarah disconnected, Jericho called out from the dining room. "You gonna finish your breakfast?"
Sarah returned to her seat at the table. "Sorry. I was worried about her."
"What's wrong with her?" Wyatt asked
"She's got some personal problems, Son," Sarah answered.
Jericho harrumphed. "That girl's spoiled. She needs to toughen up. She don't know what real problems are."
Sarah agreed, but she respected Tiffany enough as a friend to not say it aloud.
"I know, Jericho, but Tiffany hasn't heard one word from him. He left one day and just didn’t come back. No good-bye, see you later or anything. You gotta admit that was shitty.” Sarah turned to Wyatt. "Sorry, Son. Don't ever use that word."
"I know, Mom. Grandpa says just because you cuss like a sailor doesn't mean it's right."
"He's right. You listen to Grandpa."
She turned her attention back to Jericho. “What’s worse, he left his horse, too. The ass—I mean the jerk hasn't even called to ask about Rudy. He left his tack behind, too. It’s one thing for him to leave a horse he didn’t especially like, but to leave his saddle is a bad sign.”
"You still haven’t said why you’re taking Popsie," Jericho said. "You're not planning on riding, are you?"
"I wouldn't mind if I get the chance. The guy doing the clinic is supposed to be some super expert on horses and horsemanship. Some people call him a horse whisperer. Maybe I could learn something."
"That's bullshit. You ride as good as anybody I know. You don't need no lessons from a bullshitter."
"Jericho!" Sarah widened her eyes and pointed her two index fingers at her ears. She shot a quick look at her son. "That's another bad word, Wyatt. Don't say that one either."
Wyatt straightened in his chair and thrust out his little chin in indignation. "His picture's in a magazine. I saw him on TV.” Wyatt scooted out of his chair and ran out of the room, returned with a magazine and thrust it into Sarah’s hand. The cover showed a picture of a lean cowboy wearing a black hat, astride a good-looking horse, the cowboy’s face, the horse’s face and a steer’s face all within inches of each other. It was an outstanding photograph.
“Him and his horses win all the cutting shows,” Wyatt said. “I wish I could go see him.”
"Tell you what, Son. I gotta work Friday, but you’re getting out of school at noon. We can ask Jericho if he’ll pick you up at school, then take you out to Louise’s. I'll talk to her and make sure you get to meet him."
"Just don't get on Tiffany's horse," Jericho said. "The sumbitch might kill you. Hell, he might kill me trying to get him into the trailer.” He gave a deep heh-heh-heh.
Sarah made a mental sigh. Trying to teach a nine-year-old boy not to cuss in this house was impossible.
"The truth is, you don't need to be getting on any horse," Jericho went on. "It's only been a few months since that last surgery and we're hoping it's the last one. You don't want to mess it up."
"Jericho, I can't mess it up. And I can't sit around and do nothing. I'm okay. My leg's good. No infection or anything. Riding would be good exercise. If it started to hurt, I could take lots of ibuprofen."
With that, she picked up the bottle of Advil sitting in the middle of the table, bumped a couple into her palm and swallowed them.
